Rasagiline can be obtained by two related ways: 1) The alkylation of racemic 1-aminoindane with propagyl chloride (II) and K2CO3 in hot acetonitrile gives the racemic secondary amine (III), which is submitted to optical resolution by chromatography over Chiracel OJ and eluting with hexane/isopropanol (90:10). 2) By alkylation of (R)-1-aminoindane (IV) with propargyl chloride (or bromide) (II) as before.